Irish fans are smiling

Since the advent of the state championship football series that began in 2006, San Francisco public schools have won two state titles — Galileo in 2017 and Lincoln in 2018. This year, Balboa will contend for the Division 7-A state title.

The three San Francisco private schools that play in the West Catholic Athletic League — Riordan, Sacred Heart Cathedral and St. Ignatius — have never even appeared in a state championship game.

SHC has changed that by making it to the CIF Division 4-A state title game and hope to become the first San Francisco private school to win a state football championship when the Irish face off against Northview-Covina 6 p.m. Saturday at Kezar Stadium.

Making this run even more improbable is the fact the Irish were one of a handful of teams to enter the postseason with a losing record as they went 3-7 during the regular season, losing their first five games to start.

Well, SHC (7-7) has a chance to finish the 2021 season on a six-game winning streak and, with a win Saturday, will finish with a winning record.

SHC has come a long way over the last two decades because for several seasons, the Irish weren’t even good enough to be part of the WCAL. From 2001 to 2007, SHC played as an independent team with an independent schedule. While the Irish played WCAL teams, they were as non-league game. With only two or three other teams in the section playing as independents, the Irish were not aligned with any league and thus, did not have the ability to qualify for the postseason. During those years, the Irish’s “championship game” was against rival St. Ignatius in the annual Bruce Mahoney Bowl.

In 2008, SHC joined the WCAL and immediately won a Central Coast Section title, beating Sacred Heart Prep for the Small School section title. Since then, the Irish have finished no better than fourth place in the WCAL standings and, before this season, had qualified for the playoffs only twice since 2008 — they advanced to the 2011 title game, where they lost the Division III championship to rival S.I., 21-14, and in 2018, made it to the Open III semifinals, losing to Sacred Heart Prep, 19-7.

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For all the football talk about Mater Dei and the Monarchs’ greatness on the football field, Serra — which will face the Monarchs in the Open Division championship game Saturday at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo — actually has more experience in state championship games than they do.

Serra will be appearing in its fourth state title game since 2006, when the CIF first started playing state championship games. The Padres are 1-2, losing to Sierra Canyon 42-40 in their initial appearance in the 2-A championship game in 2016. Serra moved up a level in 2018, winning the 2-AA crown with a 38-14 win over Cajon. In 2019, the Padres took another step up in class, losing the 1-A title to Corona Del Mar, 35-27.

Mater Dei made its first state final game in 2017, beating De La Salle in the Open Division. The Monarchs added a second straight Open title in 2018, again beating DLS.

Granted, this is the first time Serra will play for in the ultimate final game — the Open Division title — and while Mater Dei may enjoy more national recognition as one of the top teams in the country for the last several years, Serra certainly deserves to have its name mentioned in the same conversation when discussing the best programs.

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OK winter-sport coaches and statisticians, the time has come for you to start emailing your results to the Daily Journal at sports@smdailyjournal.com.

The reason is two-fold: one is to give credit where credit is due on a game-to-game basis. It also allows the Daily Journal sports staff to keep abreast of trends and standout performances from around the county.

While the two of us — Terry Bernal and myself — can’t be at every game and event, by emailing results, we can keep up on what is happening around us. It’s not unusual for reports to come in about a team or player that results in us deciding, “You know? We should probably go check out (insert player name of team here).”

We get a lot of questions about why the private schools always have their results in the paper. The answer is easy — those schools email their results to us post game.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. To report scores or tips, email sports@smdailyjournal.com